With the arrival of Peak Oil, the curtain has closed on Act 1 of the drama Petroleum Man. What will happen in Act 2? Chekhov said, "If there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the play, by the end it must go off." In the world's nuclear arsenal are many guns on the wall. If life copies art, will there be an Act 3 in which the players, having learned their lesson the hard way, live sustainably? To explore these and other questions... FTW's Act 2 Blog. Read, comment, take heart! Orkin

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Loss of Wild Life Threatens Food Supplies; Oil Leak Five Times Greater Than Reported by Officials

We are certainly getting what we deserve in the oil department. We knowingly pay the evilest to destroy the air and water. The gas pump says "self" on it. The pump handle is like a machine gun- every time you pick it up and pull the trigger, remember that it is YOU doing it. The heads of third world children are under the pedals in our cars. Our ancestors worshipped trees (oil is trees from long ago.) Every time you get in a car, you aren't going to hell, you are physically in hell, because everything the car is made out of- like glass, metal, and plastic- came from under the earth. Isn't that where hell is supposed to be? think youre in heaven but youre living in hell- dread amish

I gotta say. These kinds of well-spun stories really are funny. After you absorb all the wondrous reserve totals in the "trillions of cubic feet," it's not hard to notice they never mention rates of consumption.

It's also pretty transparent that they can't deny the environmental aspects of digging for shale gas. It's just spun in a way that settles the reader's conscience. Keyword phrases include "as new technologies come online" and "engineers are working on solutions that would....," and "a small price to pay for... " And wallah! With a few tricky phrases, you have calmed the surface concerns of 95% of readers who never look deeper, and WANT to promote investment in these "technologies of the future." ... A one-sided story like this is all they need.

Never mind that collapse is happening right now.

In the great words of Frank Drebbin as chaos unfolds behind him: "Please disperse!! Nothing to see here!"

Indeed, Thomas Cole's great 1830s pentaptych, "The Course of Empire", has a clear message:

"[A]ll empires, no matter how magnificent, are condemned to decline and fall. The implicit suggestion [then] was that the young American republic of Cole's age would be better served by sticking to its bucolic first principles and resisting the imperial temptations of commerce, conquest, and colonization."

And then here we are now, 180+ yrs later, still merrily to unmerrily flopping around -- with even all the much more experience & history from which to figure out what we need to. And we're still not catching on?! Goodness!

Evidently ugly things just need to continue; and/or things need to get even uglier...? Hmph.

What resonated was something Geoff Lawton said during his PDC presentation (Permaculture Design Course) about "Permaculture divorces" when one partner gets it, and the other refuses. I found myself in such a situation, but luckily, or through perseverance and a willingness to compromise, Love found a way, we've never been happier :)

5,11,10; 4:25pm.Elmo thinks I am not specific enough! Everyone wants to be breast fed(Dependent/infantile Amae).Jenna posts many distractions almost every day, the goal is to change the way money, Conflict, cooperation, Manipulation by the powers! Who gave them that POWER? LAZY YOU & ME, look in the mirror, not down the street.

RanD had numerous posts all leading in the same direction, which no one saw, or wanted to.Elmo has repeated His message of DOOM, concluding with this;

"/Don't think I'm joking!/ If you and I can't wrestle the power away from them, then /we're all fucked!/ We can't just wander off and plant our little gardens, and pretend they're not there!"

To which he received NOTHING; I followed after 4 days with a 3 part reinforcement from my viewpoint; just after that I discovered that WWI almost was ended TWICE by the troops, most everyone knows about the Christmas truce, & gift exchange, few know they refused to return to battle, There was a second Episode where the Combat stopped!! Both times the troops had to be threatened with execution to resume the Killing!My assumption that you would recognize the context I was writing in was all wrong, The information I am looking for is proving hard to find, I have the Book "The Evolution of Cooperation" ordered.Surely in this enlightened day we can do better than those uneducated farmers.

I see little chance of "wrestling" progress in/from this Blog.

I pray that Collapse is more disciplined, & directed toward concrete Change.

If you insist in taking your animosity past the end, stay away from me,I will have none of it!!

agape wins, Your above 3:28PM post exemplifies the rare conjoining of insight courage focus & passion that this world is literally starving to death for; we are grateful for your uncommon, much needed body of spirit and mind; and likewise pray with you "that Collapse [becomes] more disciplined, & directed toward concrete Change."

I think we all hope for that. I don't think that we should depend on it happening. Always hedge your bets or at least bet no more than you can afford to lose, especially if you're gambling on long shots.

Not everything that is possible can happen. And often times, improbable things never occur.

"If you insist in taking your animosity past the end, stay away from me,I will have none of it!!"

Some people feel that if other disagree with them, then they are practicing hate or animosity. I don't know if that's what you mean here or not. I don't think I've seen much in the way of animosity on this blog.

To think that people are going to collectively behave better towards each other under the stress of collapse, I believe, is wishful thinking. I remember during the L.A. riots in 1992 when my Dad pulled me in front of the television to show me something. Someone had pulled up in front of a television store with a pickup truck and ran inside to steal a TV. But when they came outside with the TV in their hands, someone had already stolen their pickup truck!

This is the kind of stuff I think we're really going to be faced with around collapse, but it will probably involve food and water much more than televisions.